GURUGRAM: In the past two weeks, more than Rs 55 lakh was fraudulently withdrawn from five different ATMs of a nationalised bank in Gurugram, police said.
“The fraudsters target mainly unmanned ATMs and manipulate the security system to withdraw cash,” a police officer said.
The discrepancies came to notice when the bank found differences in the cash at these ATMs and the total withdrawals.
The ATMs targeted by the fraudsters are located at Ardee City, Sector 14, Omax City Centre Mall, Rajendra Park and Arcadia Market in South City-2. All these ATMs belong to Punjab National Bank (PNB) and different companies, outsourced by the bank, are looking after these ATMs.The first incident came to light on April 6 in Ardee City when the companies looking after the ATM alerted the bank highlighting that the ATM had Rs 31.6 lakh, of which Rs 25.4 lakh was fraudulently withdrawn.
Following this, IT and chief security advisor Rajiv Pawar of PNB scanned the CCTV footage and found that the accused had placed some electronic gadget on the data cable between the ATM and switch to manipulate the security system of the bank.
Similarly, around Rs 1.6 lakh was withdrawn from an ATM in Sector 14, Rs 4.5 lakh from an ATM at Omax City Centre Mall, Rs 16.2 lakh was withdrawn from an ATM at Rajendra Park while Rs 9.80 lakh from Arcadia Market in South City-2.
On the basis of the complaint filed by the bank, a case was registered under sections 380 (theft) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC and Section 66 of IT Act at cyber police station on Monday.
According to the bank officials, multiple transactions were done from these ATMs and some electric gadget was placed on the machines to manipulate the security system. Police suspect that the accused might be aware about the banking system and its security system. “As only the ATMs of a particular bank have been targeted, it seems that the accused were familiar with this particular bank,” Boken added.
